After All
by SiriusMarauderFan
Summary: Sirius waits for Remus in the afterlife. one shot.


**Author's Note:** A million thanks to my team for their support. :)

Written for…

Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition. _Team/Position:_ Holyhead Harpies, Seeker. _Task:_ Write about Sirius Black

Hogwarts Assignment #1. _Lesson:_ Mythology, task 3. _Task:_ Write an Underworld or Afterlife!AU.

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 **After All**

 _1,056 words_

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Death wasn't like Sirius imagined it would be.

There was excitement and joy at first, at seeing James and Lily, Regulus… countless other faces that had been taken from him.

And then there was boredom like which he had known in Azkaban, in Grimmauld Place. Constantly waiting and hoping for some sign of what was happening in the living world.

Time moved differently here. Sometimes it seemed faster, and people would join him only to tell him that it had been months since he'd died. Most often time seemed to creep slowly by with no news at all.

He spent almost all of his time with James and Lily, telling them what he could of Harry. They had been anxious for news of their son for so long and he couldn't deny them that. They shared his restless attitude toward being shut out of the war.

Sometimes he would visit with Regulus. They were able to make amends, and Sirius enjoyed having his brother back. There was no room for silly squabbles in the afterlife.

The days and months and years passed like such until the atmosphere changed. Everyone could feel it coming. The death rate rose, and the beings - angels, Sirius called them - seemed increasingly agitated. He assumed they weren't anymore happy about the amount of senseless deaths as he was.

He and James would often go to the Gates, where all newcomers arrived. They would spend hours, sometimes days watching the Gates. It wasn't as if they had need of sleep or food.

Then the Battle of Hogwarts came, as they would call it later on. Sirius had never seen so many people arrive at once, and he knew instinctively that this was the day the war would end.

He had never prayed when he was alive. The Blacks weren't a spiritual family, and though Remus and Lily had tried to instill some faith in Sirius over the years, nothing had ever stuck. But in the moment, watching familiar faces crowd the gatekeepers - some as young as thirteen years old - he prayed that he wouldn't see Harry or Remus among them.

But then Tonks arrived. She was confused at first, wandering aimlessly past Sirius until he called out to her. It took her a moment to recognize him, and when she did she ran into his arms, mumbling about Remus and Teddy and asking if they were safe.

Sirius had no answers for her, and he could only hold her and pray harder for his friend.

But sometimes prayers weren't answered, and Sirius saw Remus again much sooner than he had hoped.

There were no scars on his friend's face when he walked through the Gates. All injuries healed in the Afterlife, and that, at least, put a smile on Sirius' face. Remus could finally be at peace without the lycanthropy interfering.

Remus seemed more coherent than Tonks had been. He made his way to them with a smile on his face, and Sirius let go of his cousin so she could run to him. He couldn't help but stare at them together, not completely angry at Remus for having moved on in his absence but still confused. He had been foolish to hold onto hope when so much time had passed.

:-:

When the night was over and the war was won, Sirius was left with his boredom once more. Lily and James, Remus and Tonks … they were free to spend their afterlives together, but Sirius had no one.

He stopped spending time with his friends. For some time - months, he thought - he travelled through the realm. The Afterlife was strange and he could go from England to Australia in the blink of an eye, but it all looked the same. White and hazy, and warm. Peaceful.

For ages he spent his time meeting strangers and getting to hear their stories. He met people who had gone to school with Merlin, and invented spells he'd taken for granted in his time. But still he felt his heart leading him away.

"I don't think I'm meant to be here," he confided in one stranger, a young woman with chestnut hair. "I can't relax like everyone. I need to keep moving."

She smiled and laid a hand on his arm. "Perhaps you need to move on."

"Is there a place beyond this one?"

"Not beyond, but before. Reincarnation is an option, Mr. Black, and perhaps it's the right one for you."

Sirius hadn't considered it before, too consumed with staying to see the outcome of the war. But there was nothing left for him here and no one to tell him to stay.

:-:

"You won't remember anything of this life," the technician told him as Sirius readied himself to say his goodbyes. "Once you go into the River Lethe, you'll forget all about Sirius Black."

Sirius nodded and turned back. The disapproving faces of his friends stared back at him.

"Good luck," James said, giving him one last hug. Lily held her tongue, and Sirius thanked her for that.

Remus was there too, and he looked more upset than Sirius had expected.

"I'll see you around," he said. Sirius smiled and nodded, but he wasn't sure he would even remember Remus when his next life ended.

Still, he'd already made up his mind.

Sirius Black stepped into the river and moments later James Sirius Potter came into the world.

:-:

The world had always seemed too small for James Sirius Potter. He'd forced himself to sit through seven years of Hogwarts on the promise his father had made him that if he finished school, he could travel the world. And he did.

There wasn't anything in particular he had longed to see, but he had a great desire to keep moving, to meet new people and make friends everywhere he went.

Romance hadn't been on his mind, but then Leo came into his life and there was no turning back. He was kind and gentle and James' complete opposite, and maybe that's what made him so special.

Often, people would joke that James and Leo were made for each other, that they must have been together in past lives. But James didn't believe in anything like that. He just knew that Leo was the only person he wasn't to spend the rest of his life with.


End file.
